Skeptical Stripping

The subject of flu shots and the H1N1 virus came up at both work and the club recently. Most dancers I know are getting the seasonal flu shot. Most the people I work with aren’t and even a few think the H1N1 vaccine is either too new or just a scam to make money. Dancers have a much more practical approach to virus than my co-workers.

Since dancers don’t get paid if the don’t work they have to be more practical. The seasonal flu will knock you out for a week at least, probably more. I suppose your attitude toward the flu shot depends greatly on depends on how much you think you are at risk to get the flu. Most of my co-workers have a relatively limited exposure to people. Except for the ones with kids and those who travel they only see basic set of people.

The dancers work environment seems tailor made for transmitting the flu. A dancer has to meet and greet anybody who walks in of the street. She may have drinks with customer. For both sales and practical reasons she need to get close to the customer, much closer than a normal social situation. If she’s trying to sell a lap dance she’ll probably press up against the customer. Even if she’s isn’t trying to sell a dance, she’ll probably get close just because that’s the only way you can be heard when the music is loud. Dancers get handed dollar bills that have been drooled on, breathed on, and stuck in some unpleasant places. Short of vaccination, the most effective way avoid the flu is to avoid exposure. If you are a dancer you have to put yourself in harms way to make money.

The fact that travelers often visit strip clubs make things worse. Traveling is also a terrific way to catch something. You get to spend time crammed into confined spaces with people who were just recently crammed in to confined space with another set of people. At least when you travel you can take some precautions. I’m hardly a neat freak but I carry hand sanitizer with me now when I travel.

Dancers don’t get sick time or workman’s compensation either. If they don’t show up, they don’t get paid period. Getting put flat on your back with the flu will definitely make a dent in a budget. A flip side to this is getting a dancer’s regulars sick will also cost her money. If a customer gets sick with the flu he’s not going to come in either. While the H1N1 seems to affect younger people worse than older, in general the older you are the less effective your immune system is, and the longer it takes to recover. Vaccination protects her customers.

I’m not sure where all the fear about vaccines comes from. I suppose it ultimately is a result people make of risk versus reward for any medical decision. You are getting a steel tube stuck through skin, and something you may or may not need injected in to you. I don’t like shots, never will. I think the perceived risk from the infectious disease has decreased dramatically. There is a H1N1 pandemic going on as I write this blog post. Except for the media reports I wouldn’t have any idea.

My idea of a pandemic is something out of horror movie. People dying in the streets, cars abandoned on the freeway. As far as I can tell this isn’t happening. Dying of a disease just really isn’t a threat I think about on a daily basis. I remember when I was young I had to go to see the doctor to get my vaccinations updated so I could go to school. We moved around a lot when I was young and I had slipped through the cracks for keeping up with my shots. The last thing I wanted to do on a nice summer day was go get a shot, especially if the only reason I needed it was so I could go to school. That was stupidity squared. On top of that doctors used inoculation guns at the time. These things hurt like hell. The used air pressure to force a stream of fluid through the skin, no needles.

When my mother told me to go get in the car, I objected of course, and kept objecting despite the threats from my mother. My grandmother, who was visiting us at the time, got up, grabbed my ear and physically dragged me to the car and threw me in.

Much to the endless delight of my brothers I had just gotten by ass kicked by my grandmother. My grandmother was born in 1897. She had lived through the Spanish flu, Polio, and other disease outbreaks that resulted in very real suffering. To her vaccines were one of the great things in the world. I was going to get a shot, even if it meant pulling one of my ears off. Death or permanent disfigurement from disease was a very real thing to her. When I was in grade school it was fairly common thing to see somebody who has lost the use of an arm or walked with a limp from Polio. I cannot honestly remember the last time I saw somebody like that since graduating from high school.

I asked a friend of mine, who a vascular surgeon, what the difference is between was the H1N1 and the seasonal flu. He said the only difference is the “deactivated” virus that’s in it. Everything else is the same. Vaccines work by introducing a dead virus into the body. The immune system will create memory cells for the virus. Since its “deactivated” (ie dead) it doesn’t do anything like try to reproduce. Death tends to suppress the sex drive. Next time your immune system sees the virus, like when somebody sneezes on you at the airport, your immune system can react immediately and fight it off. When they created the seasonal vaccine they didn’t think the H1N1 was going to break out. The H1N1 is just another influenza virus.

I’ve gotten the seasonal vaccine, and will get the H1N1 when the lines die down. I’ve gotten the seasonal flu once. It pretty much kicked my ass for one week, and it was another couple weeks before I felt normal. Even though the zombie apocalypse hasn’t occurred from H1N1 there are people dying from it.

Strip club secret weapons

The FTC has posted rules regarding disclosure of any payments or perks to bloggers. (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm) I can safely say I have not received any sort of perk or compensation for this blog. However, if you want to throw a free lap dance or drink my way I can be bought. Cheap. Really Cheap. Just sayin’. There are a lot of web sites that tell you how to get the most for your strip club dollar. What clubs allow more, where the cheapest drink are etcetera. This isn’t one of those, but these are a few simple things I’ve discovered.

The snuggly shirt
The golden rule always applies even in strip clubs. If you want somebody to do something nice to you, do something nice for them. Wear really soft fuzzy shirts to the club. It’s just common sense, if you want somebody to grind against on you, you should be pleasant to grind against. A dancers work clothes tend to very thin to non-existent. What you wear makes a big difference. I discovered this purely by accident. One of my many quirks is I’m really concerned about textures. How a garment feels is as important to me as how it looks. This explains why I sometimes dress like an idiot, texture over image every time.

Have to be honest, it never occurred to me that a dancer would care until one day I wore a microfiber shirt to the club that felt like silk. It got an immediate reaction from the dancers. Soon I had my wardrobe divided up into my A list shirts, B list shirts and all the rest. The A list shirts were really, really soft sort of what you’d expect to find on a plush stuffed animal. B list were not quite so soft but still nice. I think the A list shirts are more popular than me. But I guess that setting the bar pretty low. I have noticed an oddity that I can’t point out that I’m wearing a soft shirt to have an impact. The dancer has to discover it. I suppose I probably come across as a creep, “Hey baby want to feel my shirt”, ugh.

The bar staff is your best friend
Seriously, take care of the bar staff. They can be your best friends in the club. Whether it’s carrying your unconscious ass out the back or vouching for you when a scammer stripper tries to hit you up for more dances than she actually did the bar staff can be your savior. Most clubs have a policy that a dancer can’t turn down a drink if customer offers to buy one (she doesn’t have to drink it) or always try get the customer to buy them a drink. Waitresses are much more likely to either ignore the rule, or ask you specifically if you want to the buy the dancer a drink even if the dancer asks for one. It’s really nice to have the waitress on your side. I’ve had waitresses warn me when a dancer is buying a really expensive drink. Any dollar they save me I always tip them in appreciation.

The bypass
If you are holding your drink in your hand waitresses will usually not ask you if want another. When you’re at a club where they don’t know you this is a fairly effective way to keep waitresses from constantly asking you if you want another drink. This will also slow down a dancer sitting next to you who is currently pounding down drinks like a drunken sailor. It can save you a few bucks and help avoid a confrontation with a drunk dancer.

A brief history of the heel

I recently became curious as to when the current stripper style shoe came into being. The six clear Lucite or white platform stiletto. Not too surprisingly there is zero information on this particular subject. At nothing I could uncover with a solid fifteen minutes of research with Google. I’m going to continue the research but I haven’t quite figure out where to look. In the mean time this is what I did find, a brief history of the heel. Note: most of the information I got from the Shoe Diva web site (http://www.geocities.com/fashionAvenue/1495/contents1.html) Check it out for more information.

It appears that the platform heel got its start in ancient Greece and Rome. Besides democracy, aqueducts, and olive oil we have the heel to thank them for as well. They were called kothorni and were worn by actors. In theater at the time height was equated to status or gravitas of the character. One interesting thing about Roman society is that actors had similar social perceptions strippers have now. People love to watch them, definitely wanted to go party with them, but did not want to be scene with them in polite society. Actor was not a profession any good Roman aspired to. This is part of the reason why the Emperor Nero was so hated by the Roman elite. Nero had to nerve to think himself an actor and would put on performances forcing the Roman upper class to watch. Nero, Emperor of the largest and most powerful empire in the world, absolutely infuriated the Roman elite when one of their own became an actor. In current terms this would be like President Obama addressing congress “Before I begin my state of the union address, I want to show you a couple of my new pole tricks”! While I would find it refreshing to have a president with both humor and chops to do poll tricks, it probably wouldn’t be received well by most.

There are also some sources that claim internet that butchers in the Roman era also used high heels to keep their feet clear of the blood and gore that accumulated while they work. Two thousand years later they are still being worn in meat markets, albeit the markets are now clubs and bars now.




As the Roman Empire declined and fell, so did the height of shoes. The European continent descended into the dark ages and shoes became merely functional again. It would be in the Renaissance, the age of enlightentment, before the high heel shoe would reappear. In Italy, ground zero for all high heel fashions it seems, a shoe style called Chopine or Chapiney. These shoes ranged from 6 to 16 inches in height. I kind of have a hard time believing somebody wearing 16 inch heels in a world with cobble stone streets but who said fashion had to be safe or comfortable. In 1430 they were even outlawed in Venice. I can’t find a reason why, perhaps they were punching holes in the gondolas and sinking them. That’s bad for tourism. The invention of the high heel is sometimes is credited to Catherine of Medici. She was short in stature and betroth to the Duke of Orleans, eventual king of France. Necessity is the mother of invention, while she didn’t really invent them she did make them more acceptable to polite society.

The high heel still wasn’t accepted completely though. In 1670 British parliament forbade the wearing of heels, makeup or false hair. The wearer of high heels could be prosecuted for witchcraft. The dark ages for heels weren’t quite over yet. It would be the 1930’s before the heel would make it return. Again in the epicenter of high heel world Salvatore Farragamo began to design shoes in Italy. To me at least, its striking how modern looking the Farragamo shoes look.



While the high heel remained, the platform didn’t really take off until the 1970’s. This time both men and women were wearing platform shoes now. I was in high school in the late 70’s (I graduated in 1979) and I can remember the heels. Most guys only wore them to clubs at the time, it was pretty rare to see a guy walking in platforms.

Eventually the classic (or cliché’) stripper platform came into being. This transition is not too well documented. I haven’t been able to find any real history as to when they started to be marketed. I’ll keep researching.

The Hard sell

There’s a dancer that always hits me up with the hard sell every time I go into the club. I’ve never bought dances from her or shown any interest in her. I tip her on stage but that’s the extent of it. She’s always polite and interesting to talk to, except when drinks a little too much. She won’t however leave, until I ask her to or another customer comes in that’s a better sales prospect. The vast majority of time I’m usually waiting for another dancer that invited me in. It’s actually pretty rare that I just show up at the club. Between text message, twitter, and old fashion phone calls somebody is trying to contact me. This girl will rush the table and sit down uninvited.

So why is this a problem? When she is sitting at my table, other dancers won’t approach the table. I’ll tell her when she is sitting down, I’m waiting for another girl but that doesn’t stop her. I either end up chasing her off or the girl who I am waiting will force her way in. A lot a dancers won’t do this. They stick the etiquette that you don’t interrupt another dance at table. Or more likely if the girl is pushy with a customer, she’s probably a psycho dancer in the dressing room and not worth the drama.

At a certain point she goes from a scantily clad beautiful dancer to an annoying salesperson. I understand she is there to make money, but there comes a point it no longer is sale job but a contest of wills. I’m not buying that she is selling and she isn’t going to leave. The undesirable force meets the irritated object.

Where do you draw the line? Usually when you tell a dancer that you are waiting for somebody else, they’ll realize that there is no money to be made and move on. You get different levels of graceful exits. Most will politely leave, some will abruptly leave, and a few make a nasty comment then leave. This girl ignores the fact that I’m waiting for some one else and still sits down. At work there are people on three continents who will ignore my wishes in multiple languages. I really don’t want to pay for the privilege.

It also changes the way I perceive the dancer. They no longer are beautiful, scantily clad women. They are annoying salespeople. The fact that she’s on a stage means she is a dancer but a naked annoying salesperson. Worse yet they are a drunk annoying naked salesperson.

The worse thing to do is to give in to an ultra aggressive dancer. If you buy a dance after the high pressure sell you are really stuck. In her mind if you bought a dance once you are going to buy a dance again. At this point she’s gone from annoying to herpes. You are stuck with her forever. The only question is how bad it is going to be when she shows up and gets underneath your skin. The only cure is death. There are a few dancers that notice I cringe when they approached. I’ve never been a very good at hiding my feelings. They’ll even use that as a sale pitch, “You cringe when you see me. That’s not nice, you should buy some dances too make it up to me”. Barf.

This also affects the other girl’s money. After chasing a hard sell, I’m not always completely rational. I dancer might ask to sit down with, not realizing that the Guido the dancer just tried to break my arm. I end up glaring at like she just asked to have one of my kidneys. No kidneys, no dances damn it. A pushy salesperson is a pushy sales person, naked or not.

Podcasting

I’ve been really interested in podcasting. Without too much equipment or technical skill you can put together a show to be distributed over the internet. There isn’t a major selection of stripper oriented podcasts out there. What is there is pretty lame. They are either dancers griping about customers or the “ask a dancer” thing. I’d like to do a series of podcasts with a more practical approach. More of a how to get started and dancer basics, something that get more into the way things actually work. The podcast would be aimed much more at dancers rather than customers.

Here is my initial Episode list

1) Getting started. - The absolute basics of what it takes to start dancing. Clothes, transportation, clubs, etc. Very general in scope
2) Picking a club. - What to consider location, type of club. Where to research. What to look for.
3) The Audition. - What to expect. What to do, what not to do. What to wear. What to bring. Things to look for.
4) The first day. - What to bring, What to expect. Different shifts.
5) Persona. - What name to pick, what to wear.
6) Strip club operations. Bouncers, Waitresses, Bar Tenders, Managers
7) Difficult customers. What to look for, what to do.
8) Difficult co-workers. What to look for, what to do.
9) Children – Where to find a baby sitters, problems that other parents don’t have.
10) Traveling – Laws, Las Vegas, Guam
11) Switching clubs – Risks, When to change clubs


The basic format would sort of a short conversation style. I think if two dancers on a skype call and limited the time to 15 to 20 minutes it would be both useful and entertaining. If you’re interested in participating let me know at:

pdxstoney(at)gmail.com

It will probably be a couple months before I get the logistics worked out of producing and distributing a podcast. I’ve thought about doing it “live” from a club. The problem is that most clubs play the music load enough to shoot down lo flying aircraft. Not very good setup for recording.

Shout out

Check out the folks at DeviantNation and follow them at twitter.com/DeviantNation. Or you can go thier web site out www.deviantnation.com. They have one of my favorite dancers there Rocket! Or you can go to Rocket's site www.rocketisrad.com.

For you folks who aren't to offended I found a picture on the web that just cracked me up.

Career Counseling

When I grow up I want to be a fireman. Personally I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was way small. There are a couple careers dancers tend toward when they decide to hang up the heels. Fireman isn’t one of them, though I think it might be an option for some of them. Most dancers a physically fit, they are familiar with brass poles and they're expert in changing clothes quickly. However, I fear suddenly having to get up early in the morning and rush off to a fire might a deal killer for most. These are all anecdotal observations of mine, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a formal study.

The most common career is hair stylist or cosmetologist, something in the beauty industry. This seems like a pretty natural career for dancers. Dancers have to make themselves up for work everyday. Pretty much all aspects of the beauty industry get used. Hair, cosmetics, pedicure, manicure, and probably a dozen other things I know nothing about. Dancers have to spend far more primping for work than most professions. Not only that, the amount of money they make may depend on how good they look. If that was the situation for me I’d starve to death. I often wonder how much difference in the amount of makeup really effects the customers, but I can believe that a dancers self confidence has a direct impact on her money.

Dancers spend a lot of time evaluating themselves and other dancers as to how well they look. After a while I they probably build up the confidence that they know what looks right. I’ve noticed a lot of my dancer friends all have hair stylist they just love, except they never layer their hair the right way, or get the color right, and charge way too much. Except for that they just love their stylist. Somewhere in their career they probably decided, hey I can do that. There are some other similarities in scheduling. The odds are if they become a stylist they’ll have to rent a chair from a salon, which like stage fees. Except stage fees are a pay as you go kind of deal, the chair will require at least monthly payments if not a lease. Also you’ll need to be insured to be a stylist. Customers would be much more difficult. Women who go to hair salons are much more demanding than guys going to s strip club, but not as creepy.

Another career common pursued by dancers is licensed massage therapist. I don’t think they go into this because of familiarity with couch dances but because of the amount of time they spend talking and counseling customers. Dancers I suspect become much more body conscious than most folks. There is a tremendous amount of physicality with the job. Trying to move and look sexy on a stage, engaging in unarmed combat with a handsy customer requires the dancers to spend a lot more time evaluating what they and other people are doing physically.

Another common career is real estate agents. I’ve had two friends go into this field. The only correlation I can draw between these two careers is the relative independence. Real estate agents have a high degree of mobility in their jobs. They usually don’t spend much time being directly supervised. They are both primarily sales jobs.

Surrealistic Stripper moments
I just recently had one of those “did I just see that?” moments in a club recently. The D2 was being remodeled on a Sunday afternoon when I went in. With the dulcet tones a Makita drills humming in the background a dancer made her way through the drop clothes and got on stage. About half way through her first set a worker trundled out from behind a drop cloth, walk up the stage, pulled out a flashlight and started to work taking the measurements of the stairs. The dancer totally ignored the construction worker. Worse yet she was the “I’m so sexy poser” kind of dancer. To me, most dancers who try to look so serious and sexy just end up looking constipated. To her credit, she continued to dance completely oblivious to the worker. The worker busily took measurements for most of the song, never looking up. Then got up turned around and disappeared into the back.